Status of World Socialist Party (US)
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“I don’t think we should be discussing the WSPUS in their absence from this Forum either.”
As far as I know the only WSPUS active on this forum is Darren O.
So far he has kept his counsel to himself for whatever reason. How connected he is with other members I have no idea. His main activity is related to the SPGB.
A Portland member Morgan was once active in the IWW and also posted on Libcom but has fallen silent on their forum
And then there is StephenS who is US based running his personal and a socialist blog that was intended to take advantage of the increased interest in socialism, now that it has come out of the closet.
But as the topic is whether the WSPUS actually exists or not as a functioning organization I think we have to find out for sure.
Their home page has not been updated since 2016 when Joe Hopkins and Darren posted.
I have not heard of Ron Ebert in a while.
And stalwart, Karla Rab, passed away. Video of her doing a presentation on human nature can be seen here
https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2015/05/human-nature-video-talk.html
Unlike the other companion parties, the SPC, WSPNZ and WSPIndia who hold administrative meetings plus limited activity, the WSPUS doesn’t seem to be able to.
Matt said:
“but I confidently expect a lot of hositility coming my way once I start disputing St Jeremy’s gospel.“
my emphasise
Well again that is my point Matt. On the attack.
Better to retweet their attacks on inequality and opposition to war? Personally I do because I oppose them too,(inequality and war) but I also point out that the wages system is the real cause of war and poverty. I could attack their representative – the only person speaking out in the media – but that would be counter productive as it would be seen as an attack on them and their friends and family – many dying on the streets or committing suicide because of poverty.
These are genuine people seeking publicity and solutions. The worst thing the SPGB could do is alienate them. This is just my feelings on the matter.
We have nothing to lose but our chains 😉
I was informed that the website of the SPC was hacked
Even if it has been it’s still there at the moment:
Alan, you write:
how I detest the manner in how we repetitively say “wages or salary” at every turn.
But what should be call “the working class”? We know what we mean by it, but a lot of people out there don’t and either don’t think we are talking about them or that we are a group outside the working class that wants to do something for the poor workers.
That’s why we have to think of some term that conveys more immediately who and what we mean. I can only think of “wage and salary working class”. Other possible terms such as “the 99%” or “the people” don’t really fit the bill.
I realise that we should really be discussing this in a different thread, but it has come up here.
Where does it say that we are against the workers? We don’t support the left and that is a different situation. Personally I was part of the so catcalled Marxist Leninist movement and I will not make alliance with anyone of those groups and I knows all of them pretty well and I know all the tendencies. I do support the hostility clause
It sounds like some groups which are against the use of expressions such as Wage slavery. Wage slaves , proletariat , proletarian , and bourgeoisie
ALB. my dislike is that it is repetitive phrase fetish. Are we still harking back to the days when the working class were divided between weekly and monthly paid (or even annual in the case of some professionals)
I’m very happy to use the term wage (or waged)workers. I see it as ritual to always add on “and salary”. What about self-employed workers who are paid as hired sub-contractor? Should we add this to include uber-workers, “wage, salary and fee worker” and for the unemployed further elaborate “wage, salary, fee and benefit recipient” workers
I was just making the point that when we say wages – people understand full well its usage and we don’t need to keep on qualifying it all the time with the word “salary” as many do in their writings. Who ever heard of the “abolition of the salary system”? Who has ever replaced “wage-slavery” with “salary-slavery”.
Nor am I very fond of the terms proletariat or bourgeoisie or lumpen-proletariat or petty-bourgeois. Say what we mean in simple terms even if we use a few extra words of explanation and not import technical language.
I also try my best when copying and pasting for the blog to stop the capitalization of Socialism and other words like Working Class etc etc…Just another pet hate of past custom.
It would be an abdication of responsibility to ignore the pretence that capitalism can be reformed without some comment. I don’t see that as me being on the attack. Especially so when it is the world’s working class who will be the agents of their own emancipation.
I was informed that the website of the SPC was hacked
We were able to get it up and running quickly. Tristan sorted it out.
There is truth in the aphorism that doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity
Alan, just to clarify – I am not at all suggesting we should continue doing things in the same old way as we have always done. Far from it, and I have already suggested a few changes that could be implemented.
However, what I was questioning was the assumption which seems to be implicit in the very aphorism you cite that our fate is entirely in our own hands and that since we continue to do what we have always done and have got nowhere this borders on insanity. But this is not entirely true, is it?
If Joe Bloggs continues to use the same set of numbers for his lottery ticket week after week , year after year you wouldn’t call his actions insane would you? Why? Because there is also a chance that the lottery will generate the numbers that correspond to what he has on his ticket with the outcome that Joe will hit the jackpot and will finally be able to retire to the Bahamas or Clacton-on-sea, perhaps. It would of course be insane for Joe to use the same numbers week after week if it were the case that the lottery generated the same numbers week after week which bore no relation to Joe’s numbers but that’s not the case in reality
It might be stretching matters a little but the same kind of argument could apply to what we are doing. In one sense capitalism generates a predictable outcome. Things haven’t changed much in this deep structural sense. The same old problems seem to re-occur over and over again. But, in another sense, capitalism is the throes of constant change . “All that is solid melts in the air” as the Communist Manifesto said. New technological advances – from machine learning to gene editing; new forms of social interaction and ‘pop culture’; new challenges like climate change and plastic pollution are constantly throwing up new possibilities and pointing to the need for new ways of thinking
We cannot know or predict how all this secular trends might interact in the future. It is at least conceivable that this shifting constellation of factors might re-align themselves and come together in quite novel ways that begin to suddenly make what we are saying appear a lot more relevant and interesting. I dont know if I am deluding myself but I have already noticed a few straws in the wind in the many Facebook forums I frequent. Its a glass ceiling we are running into at the moment but with a few heftier pushes we could break through.
The point that I am making , Alan, is that there is always grounds for hope and that this does not depend entirely on what we do ourselves. There is simply no point in pessimism. It is self defeating and demoralising. That way lies only doom as Private Frazer was wont to point out
We need somehow to combine a belief that things can change with a belief in ourselves to make the changes that will help bring about that change
Just as an aside. The odds of any combination of numbers being drawn in the Lotto game are always 1 in 13,983,816, and a sequence like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 is therefore just as likely as any other. But how many people actually pick that run of numbers? We would consider it as irrational but it isn’t.
But just to clarify, I have picked up on your suggestions for improvement, Robbo and was in no way implying you were insane 😉
There is a difference though from having a gloomy view of how things are progressing and being in denial of a downward trend. As can be seen from the content of my posts, I might be full of doom, but I have not given up hope and have made what I consider to be a strategy to stem the decline and hopefully reverse it.
As can be seen from the content of my posts, I might be full of doom, but I have not given up hope and have made what I consider to be a strategy to stem the decline and hopefully reverse it.
Good to hear that Alan though, as I say, even without such a strategy there is still reason to hope (though this is not a reason for not developing such a strategy)
And just for the record I stick with the same set of lottery numbers every week not because I’m insane but because I’m too bloody lazy to think up an alternative set of numbers. But dont worry – Ill let you all know when Ive acquired the windfall that will enable to retire in luxury to Clacton-on-sea
Matt said:
It would be an abdication of responsibility to ignore the pretence that capitalism can be reformed without some comment.
No one has said that. So no one has abdicated responsibility
Marcos:
Where does it say that we are against the workers?
Nowhere, and no one has said that.
These two comments are straw men and not helpful replies. I will therefore leave it at that as I have no intention of chasing my own tail. Again. Good luck, though 😉
Robbo, I said it earlier to Dave
“I believe we are a movement not a monument and that we can evolve. ”
I said it to ALB about the broader conditions
” there are signs that workers are growing more combative after a period of subjugation”
But, of course, both statements require caveats but more importantly, it requires the will to set things into motion
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